(AGENPARL) – ven 12 luglio 2024 A weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews
items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for
the content in the links below.
….. LLNL Report, July 12, 2024
A technician mounts a keyhole shock-timing target on a stalk that attaches
the target to the Ignition Target Inserter and Cryostat, which is attached to
the end of the target positioner and cools the target and deuterium-tritium
fuel mixture to meet temperature and uniformity requirements. (Photo: LLNL)
… The race for energy’s ‘holy grail’
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-us-fusion-race-4452d3be?st=qb1dqx97krdqnj2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
A high-tech race is under way between the U.S. and China as both countries
chase an elusive energy source: fusion. 
China is outspending the U.S., completing a massive fusion technology campus
and launching a national fusion consortium that includes some of its largest
industrial companies. The result is an increasing worry among American
officials and scientists that an early U.S. lead is slipping away.
Fusion has seen a burst of interest from governments and private investors
since August 2021. Investments in fusion technology surged in 2022 after
scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved “ignition”
— a fusion reaction that produced more energy than it consumed. The federal
research lab has achieved the key milestone four times since.
Tammy Ma, lead for the Inertial Fusion Energy Initiative at Lawrence
Livermore’s National Ignition Facility, said the U.S. fusion budget of $790
million for the 2024 fiscal year, a 4% increase from the year prior, hasn’t
been enough to keep pace with inflation. The sluggish growth has meant fewer
research grants and grant-funded positions available in U.S. graduate
schools, Ma said.
Read More
https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-us-fusion-race-4452d3be?st=qb1dqx97krdqnj2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
During heat waves, San Francisco usually sees lower temperatures due to its
proximity to the Pacific Ocea. (Image: National Weather Service)
… So cool, it’s a hot spot
San Francisco has long championed itself as a temperate paradise — even if
it didn’t feel that way to start the month.
But San Franciscans know that these summer warm-ups — despite increasing in
frequency — remain the exception, not the rule. The city’s year-round
climate has generally kept its cool and breezy identity, even as the rest of
the nation has boiled under record-breaking heat waves through much of the
first half of the year.
But with global warming threatening so many previously hardened climate
realities, it raises a question: Will San Francisco always be able to
insulate itself from the simmering nationwide summer heat? The short answer,
according to weather experts is yes — because San Francisco lies along the
Pacific Ocean.
If anything, climate researchers said, rising global temperatures will only
bolster the city’s role as a weather refuge.
“San Francisco might become more of an escape, honestly, because inland
temperatures are expected to rise much faster than oceanic temperature,”
said Paul Ullrich, head of climate resilience at Lawrence Livermore National
Lab. “It will continue to be a respite, if not a growing respite from
change.”
Read More
A gamma ray sensor built by LLNL scientists is an essential part of a larger
gamma-ray spectrometer built in collaboration with researchers from Johns
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. (Photo: LLNL)
… Looking at the surface of an asteroid
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-llnl-gamma-ray-sensor-resolution.html
It’s official. An instrument designed and built by Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers is the highest-resolution gamma-ray
sensor that has ever flown in space.
The Livermore high-purity germanium gamma ray sensor is an essential part of
a larger gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) built in collaboration with researchers
from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
The GRS is part of a suite of instruments launched Oct. 13 from the Kennedy
Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to make the first-ever visit
to Psyche, the largest metal asteroid in the solar system. In a post-launch
test, the LLNL gamma-ray sensor was found to have a resolution of 2.1 kilo
electron volts, about 2 ½ times better than the 5-kilo electron volt
resolution gamma-ray sensor LLNL built for a mission to Mercury in 2004.
“With the higher resolution gamma ray sensor, it equates to much better
sensitivity and a much better ability to identify elements on the surface of
Psyche,” said LLNL physicist Morgan Burks, who heads the Lab team that
developed the sensor.
Read More https://phys.org/news/2024-06-llnl-gamma-ray-sensor-resolution.html
Machine head: lead designer Darrel Carter designed the Deep Purple payload.
(Photo: LLNL)
… Space truckin’: LLNL delivers ‘Deep Purple’ optics
https://optics.org/news/15/7/7
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s space hardware team has delivered
a payload for NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator-R satellite. LLNL
developed the optical payload, called Deep Purple – named after the heavy
rock pioneers – that utilizes a new design for a UV and SWIR monolithic
telescope.
The mission is intended to demonstrate simultaneous monolithic UV and SWIR
optical sensing from space for the first time via two co-boresighted, 85 mm
aperture monolithic telescopes using a new compact custom electronics module
and a novel, lightweight, carbon-composite optical housing and radiator.
The satellite is scheduled to launch in the summer of 2024 aboard SpaceX’s
Transporter-11 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Deep Purple also will observe UV and short-wave infrared light from high-UV
stars and the galactic bulge. The scope’s dual optical module and
electronics are contained in a 250 x 150 x 100 mm package. LLNL’s
monolithic optics are a novel line of compact Cassegrain telescopes
constructed out of a single piece of fused silica. This design allows for a
compact telescope that can endure the harsh environments of launch and outer
space.
Read More https://optics.org/news/15/7/7
LLNL scientists built the lenses for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time
(LSST) Camera. (Photo: SLAC)
… Eye on the sky
https://www.gophotonics.com/news/details/7019-slac-unveils-world-s-largest-digital-camera-for-astronomy
A team of scientists and engineers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC
National Accelerator Laboratory and their collaborators, including Lawrence
Livermore, celebrate the completion of the* *Legacy Survey of Space and Time
(LSST) Camera. As the heart of the DOE- and National Science
Foundation-funded Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the 3,200-megapixel camera will
help researchers observe our universe in unprecedented detail. Over 10 years,
it will generate an enormous trove of data on the southern night sky that
researchers will mine for new insights into the universe.
That data will aid in the quest to understand dark energy, which is driving
the accelerating expansion of the universe, and the hunt for dark matter, the
mysterious substance that makes up around 85% of the matter in the universe.
Researchers also have plans to use Rubin data to better understand the
changing night sky, the Milky Way galaxy and our own solar system.
Among the partner labs that contributed expertise and technology are
Brookhaven National Laboratory, which built the camera’s digital sensor
array; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which with its industrial
partners designed and built lenses for the camera.
A key feature of the camera’s optical assemblies are its three lenses, one
of which at 1.57 meters (5.1 feet) in diameter is believed to be the
world’s largest high-performance optical lens ever fabricated.
“The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is extremely proud to have had
the opportunity to design and oversee the fabrication of the large lenses and
optical filters for the LSST Camera, including the largest lens in the
world,” said Vincent Riot, a LLNL engineer and the former LSST Camera
project manager. “LLNL was able to leverage its expertise in large optics,
built over decades of developing the world’s largest laser systems, and is
excited to see this unprecedented instrument completed and ready to make its
journey to the Rubin Observatory.”
Read More
https://www.gophotonics.com/news/details/7019-slac-unveils-world-s-largest-digital-camera-for-astronomy
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